She put her lips to the wall of the cell where she was, and answered, "Yes." It sounded exactly as if she was in bed in her own cell; and to her great joy she heard the key turn in the iron lock, and the bolt shoot into its place. She breathed for a moment freely, but the next moment she experienced such a sudden revulsion as few could have borne without detection. To her confusion and dismay, the turnkey entered the very cell where she lay concealed under the bed. He walked up to the iron-grated window, and, as usual, the casement stood open for the benefit of air through the passage, and, in a soliloquizing manner, said, "Ah! poor Sarah! you will never sleep upon this bed again!" In breathless agony did Margaret dread two things equally fatal to her project. One was, that he should hear her breath in the stillness of the night, and discover her; the other, that he should lock the door upon her. She knew that it was not usual to lock the doors of those cells which contained no prisoners, but she dreaded lest the same absence of mind which made him saunter into Sarah Lloyd's cell should make him look the door. What a state of suspense! How did her blood course through her frame! she could hear her heart beat! She was presently relieved from her suspense, for the turnkey, having completed his duty in locking up all his prisoners, quietly departed out of the cell, and left the door, as usual, standing wide open. Never was relief more opportune or welcome than this to her overcharged heart. The clock struck the hours of nine, ten, and eleven, and Margaret had not stirred. She now rose, took her shoes in her hand, and her bundle under her arm; she then managed to tie it up with an apron-string over her shoulders, and, with the slightest tread, stole along the stone passage. A mouse would scarcely have been disturbed by her as she descended the front of steps that led to the felons' yard. To her great comfort she found the door unbolted; for the turnkey, having locked every one up, saw no necessity for bolting the yard door. Silently she opened it; it creaked so little, that the wind prevented any sound reaching beyond the precincts of the door. She made her way to the flower-stand in the governor's garden, lifted the frame out of the ground and set it up endways directly under the broken spike. It reached a little more than half way up the wall, being about thirteen feet long. She then went and took the linen line off the posts, and made a running noose at one end of it. She then took the longest clothes-prop she could find, and passed the noose over the horn of it. She mounted the frame by the help of the prop, and standing upon it she lifted the line up and passed the noose over the shoulder of the _chevaux de frise_, then, pulling it tight and close to the wall, it slipped down the iron and became fixed.